


idontwannabeyouanymore

by daydream_jjh



Series: it comes in waves [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Eating Disorders, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Jaemin I’m so sorry baby, mentions of self harm, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:55:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24192457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daydream_jjh/pseuds/daydream_jjh
Summary: If the first time was a mistake, the second was a choice and the third time shows a pattern. It shows Jaemin’s habit, the most secret part of him he keeps locked up.
Series: it comes in waves [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2032720
Comments: 2
Kudos: 132





	idontwannabeyouanymore

**Author's Note:**

> This entire fic is me projecting all my issues into Jaemin and I’m so so sorry baby I love you but my brain is loud so I had to get this one out.
> 
> Also Mari baby this ones for you bc you put up with all my spirals and I wouldn’t post this if you didn’t make me feel valid.
> 
> Will probs be posting the rest of my vent fics and turning this into a collection so,,,
> 
> Please don’t read if you’re triggered by ED’s, you can message on twit if you need to talk.
> 
> @SAINTTAEMIN

It starts small, small enough that Jaemin can brush it off as a fluke. The first time Jaemin puts it down to a momentary lapse in his judgement. A mistake. A one time thing.

He’s sixteen and preparing for a dance showcase. He needs to look his best, needs to be the right side of skinny, to be lithe and lean and delicate. All Jaemin feels is heavy and stout and coarse in the way he moves. He sees the way Dong Sicheng who’s a couple of years older than him dances- fluid and delicate, lithe body bending and moving with a natural grace that Jaemin only wishes he could possess. Even looking in his own class at people like Donghyuck, Jeno and Renjun makes Jaemin feel all types of inadequate. He doesn’t have a graceful delicate ballet body like Renjun, he doesn’t possess the beginnings of muscles and strength like Jeno and he has none of the stage presence Donghyuck possesses.

Jaemin makes the decision to try and shift some weight, to streamline his body, to feel a little more like he belongs. To feel a little more worthy. He stops having cereal and pastries for breakfast, swaps them out for a banana and stops putting syrups in his coffee. He convinces himself he’ll get used to the taste of bitterness that fills his mouth with every sip. 

Lunch becomes salad, and dinner stops being followed by dessert. Jaemin thinks he’s doing well, he feels lighter, his school uniform doesn’t fit quite so snugly as it did before.

He tells himself that this is enough, he just has to look good for this showcase and then he can go back to how he was before. He misses his mother’s comfort food and going out for treats after school with his friends and stealing candy from Mark.

It’s just until the showcase. At least that’s what Jaemin is telling himself. That’s the mantra he repeats to himself daily when his body is screaming at him to just cave and steal some fries from Jeno or to go and get baked goods with Renjun.

His mind prevails, tells him if he can do this he’ll be better, he’ll be perfect, for a little while. And then it will be over, he can go right back to how he was before.

He doesn’t believe it.

The second time it happens, Jaemin knows a secret part of him needs it. Jaemin knows a secret part of him likes it. He’s vaguely aware that a part of him craves this control.

He’s eighteen, it’s his final year at high school before he’s sent off to fend for himself at university. Jaemin feels he’s been preparing for exams all year, cramming in study sessions between lessons and dance classes and showcases and parties and finalising applications to university. He’s vaguely aware that his friends are applying to the same university. They’ll all be going to a university that is across the country from where Jaemin will be studying. That’s provided he even gets in.

His parents keep breathing down his neck, pushing him for the best grades possible, for him to be the best child possible, to give them the best bragging rights at the PTA meetings and the dinner parties they throw. It has him holed up in his bedroom, slumped over his desk and forcing the tears of frustration away with heavy blinks from tired eyes. He feels out of control, like his body isn’t his own, drowning out in an ocean of his own imperfections and insecurities as he tries desperately to claw his way out.

He vaguely feels himself spiralling out of control, not enough for people to notice, not enough to cause concern or worry from his friends, just enough for the little goblin voice that hides in the back of his head to encourage him to try it again.

He goes back to salads, to restricting what he can and can’t eat. It’s easy enough to shrug off the concern of his friends. “My mum wants me to eat healthy during exam seasons- healthy body healthy mind shit”. He knows it’s a lie, and he wants to be hurt that his friends accept it and don’t push, but he’s relieved that they don’t. He doesn’t feel like he can explain what is happening in his head.

jaemin isn’t sure he knows what is happening in his own head.

It works for a couple of weeks, he loses a couple of pounds, having to ask his mum to take in the waist on his school trousers so they stay up. She congratulated him, tells him he’s maturing and developing into a man. the goblin voice comes back and tells him it’s not enough, he is still eating too much.

So he starts to skip breakfast, he doesn’t really need it, it usually just makes him feel a bit sick and shaky. He gives the fruit pots he shares with Jisung at break times, tells jisung he needs to eat the fruit, he’s a growing boy and needs all the nutrition he can get. Jisung doesn’t say anything when Jaemin’s stomach growls, which the older boy appreciates. He’s growing accustomed to the gnawing sensation of hunger in his stomach. It grounds him, gives him a focus point that isn’t his anxiety.

Exam pressure mounts and Jaemin only eats when he’s forced to. There’s a certain pressure that comes along with eating in front of people, it spikes the anxiety in Jaemin’s veins. Objectively he knows that nobody is watching him eat, nobody is counting how many mouthfuls he takes, how he always chews ten times before swallowing and sips from his water bottle between each bite. His friends started getting worried about his consistent consumption of salad with plain chicken breast and no dressing, so he did extensive research on the cafeterias lunch menu. He knows they’re 396 calories in the pasta pot, 359 calories in the sandwiches and 391 in the risotto. He rotates between these three, knows that if he eats only half he can have an extra coffee because there’s only 128 calories in the cartons he gets from the vending machines. 

Jaemin has done the math.

His brain is just a swirl of numbers, of calorie intakes and inches and pounds.

The goblin in his brain makes it impossible to see how his hands shake and his head feels heavy and his body aches, he’s so tired all he time he falls asleep at his desk and when he is awake he’s irritable, snappy. His friends chalk it up to stress.

They haven’t noticed the way his bones protrude, the way his cheeks are sunken and more half of his lunch goes in the bin. 

They don’t notice much about Jaemin these days.

The third time happens Jaemin knows he’s using whatever this is to punish himself. If the first time was a mistake, the second was a choice and the third time shows a pattern. It shows Jaemin’s habit, the most secret part of him he keeps locked up.

They had one last meal as a group of seven, they hadn’t really seen each other much- they had all finished exams and attended prom and hung out over the summer when they weren’t on their family holidays, but not all of them as a seven. Jaemin eating far more than he realised until he feels that painful bloat in his stomach. The goblin is there, it’s telling him he overindulged like the disgusting pig he is. He tries to drown it out until Mark is laughing, telling Jaemin to slow down before he eats all the food and there’s none left for the rest of them.

Jaemin’s brain splits in two down the middle, half of him ruled by his steadily slipping sanity; it’s telling him Mark was just joking that if he knew he’d never say anything like that. Mark is far too kind and loving to ever intentionally say something that makes Jaemin want to pull all the fat on his body off and shove his fingers down his throat so his body is as empty as he feels. The other half of him is ruled by the goblin; it’s screaming at him that his friends know he is fat, that they’re just confirming what Jaemin thinks he already knows. That he’s just fat and disgusting and the sooner he learns to stop eating the better. 

He excuses himself to the toilet about five minutes later. Jaemin was always good at maths, and he’s good enough at scanning menus that he can calculate how many calories he consumed in the thirty minutes he’s been in the restaurant. The realisation that he’s consumed more calories in thirty minutes than he had for the past three days has his skim pricking with anxiety and tears forming in his eyes. If he could get up and leave he would. He’s run home, it would burn off some of the calories (not enough for Jaemin but it would be a start). 

But he can’t.

So he finds himself bent over the toilet bowl, three fingers down his throat until the contents of his stomach is staring back at him. 

Jaemin knows he should feel ashamed, embarrassed and maybe even concerned that he’s spiralling to the point of making himself sick. 

But all he feels is relief.

He can’t gain calories if he doesn’t keep them down.

Jaemin would stay adamant that he has no problems, that this isn’t an issue it’s just something that occurs. He wants to keep this thing a secret from the world, let it remain something he and he alone can control. But not even the bulkiest clothes can hide his secret anymore.

It’s been four months, and Jaemin knows everyone is going to be home for the holidays. Jaemin hasn’t seen his friends since the day they all left for university, he’s barely spoken to them. Jisung and Chenle hasn’t finished school yet, but Mark, Donghyuck, Jeno and Renjun all went off to the same university together. They managed to stay close but Jaemin seemed to slip through the cracks.

He was scared to see them. Their Instagrams were filled with memories of them and new friends. Sports games and Halloween parties and study groups and days and night out exploring their new city.

Jaemin’s Instagram was filled with abstract works of photography. There’s never any identifiable person or place because Jaemin doesn’t go out with anyone or go even to anywhere. Jaemin keeps mostly to himself.

He gets the message from Donghyuck in their long since dormant group chat, telling him to be at the ice cream parlour they frequented when they all lived at home. Jaemin feels the anxiety thrum as he walks there. He’s late, only because he was coming up with a list of pros and cons of his attendance, he had ultimately decided to not attend when Chenle’s text buzzed through. ‘Don’t be late Nana! I can’t wait to see you!’.

Jaemin reasoned that he was going for Chenle‘s sake. 

He wasn’t expecting for the six of them to look so pleased to see him, given that none of them had bothered to reach out to him since September. The goblin in his head laughed and told him that it was because he wasn’t worth the effort of talking to. Who would want to waste their time talking to the disgrace that Jaemin has become.

Jaemin misses the way his friends share worried glances, finally noticing how frail Jaemin looks. His face looks pale and gaunt, and when they hug him they can feel the press of his ribs and hip bones. Jeno resists the urge to cry when Jaemin’s sweater paw slips up and he can see the way Jaemin’s arm is just skin and bone.

They don’t comment. None of them know what to say.

When Jaemin leaves early, his body exhausted from overexerting itself to match the energy his friends have the six of them fall silent. They stay for a while after and speak in hushed tones, ice cream melting to lukewarm cream in the sundae bowls. They don’t say it aloud but they’re all thinking it. How did their best friend waste away in front of them without them even seeing it.

In every story there’s a tipping point. A moment in which the character cannot come back from. Jaemin wonders if at nineteen this is his.

Jaemin wonders when the goblin that used to sit quietly in the back of his brain became the driver at the helm. At what point did Jaemin relinquish all control and give in to the goblin?

Was it at sixteen when he let it tell him he wasn’t good enough, and that loosing a couple more pounds would be the best thing he could do?

Was it at eighteen when it convinced him that controlling his calories and starving himself was the only way he would feel normal?

Was it at nineteen when he sat in his dorm at university alone, desperately trying to feel something other than the all encompassing emptiness that was radiating from his chest, the lights off and the burn of vodka in his empty stomach and his brain working overtime to try remember the last time he ate something more than tortillas and apple slices?

Was it the night he saw his friends and realised that they were all happy. They had been happy the whole time without him. Jaemin remembered feeling something that night as he pressed sharp into his skin.

Jaemin wondered how he got to this point. Jaemin wondered if anyone could hear the way he was screaming out for help, for someone to notice and care. Jaemin wondered if it would always be like this, if he would always feel this hollow. Jaemin wondered if he’d care either way. He ultimately decided he wouldn’t. Because he didn’t. Nobody cared about Jaemin, so why should he?

Jaemin catches himself in the bathroom mirror one night. He laughs at his reflection, cackles as the tears run down his face. “I don’t want to be you anymore.” He tells his reflection. 

‘I don’t wanna be you anymore’ he tells himself.


End file.
